A Glorious New Thing Without Borders
by floorboards
Summary: They can't hold onto this forever. Whatever this is, exactly. Senseless, abstract angst. Arthur/Eames. Slash. Character death.


A/N: Written for the Inception kinkmeme on livejournal. The prompt is the poem at the bottom* of the page.

* * *

Arthur breathes in and out slowly, relishing the way Eames' neck turns to the side just so, the way his eyelids flutter when he's on the brink of sleep.

"Not yet, love," Arthur hears himself saying distantly. He traces the freckles on Eames' neck, like a constellation, like an archipelago. Kissing each spot, Arthur tries to remember when he started using such terms of endearment, when he started getting so _mushy_, so soft and pliable in Eames' arms.

There's a cosmic shift when Eames winds his arms around Arthur's stomach and draws him closer. As a pair, their center of gravity tilts to the left and Arthur gets momentarily dizzy. When Eames strokes his thumbs across the welcoming skin, and Arthur feels the desire unwind, deep within his belly. But when Eames' lips part to whisper something, when his eyebrows quirk, suddenly Arthur is afraid of what the words might be and silences them, swallows them with a kiss. There. Now they're in Arthur's throat, instead of out in the air between them, weaving them deeper into their web.

The pillows are strewn about, the sheets are on the floor. They're wrapped in a dull blue blanket that scratches at their legs and hands, but neither complain.

Arthur pulls back and slides his lips against Eames' ear. He says the name, over and over again, letting it shiver and tremble its way into something beautiful, something different each time. He's saying volumes, he's speaking in symphonies, and they both understand this peculiar language of_Eames, Eames, Eames, Eames._

And yet-

He won't look him in the eye. He won't, he won't-

Eames winds their hands together and Arthur understands that he really means _We could conquer the world together, you and I, if we wanted to. If we wanted to try._

But Arthur doesn't want to try, he wants to lay there, feeling warm and powerful, feeling like the only two people in the galaxy. Deep in his lungs lies the unmistakable sensation that this can't last forever, and maybe if they lie still for long enough, the moment will freeze into something solid and tight, something permanent to be held in the palm of a hand. Like stone. Like marble. Like a figurine or a statue or a goddamn shrine to how hard they worked, how long they struggled to get to this place, where they can be easy and slow and feel needed. They wouldn't have to worry about silly things like losing each other, of course not, how preposterous is that-

Eames touches Arthur's jaw. He tries to turn it upwards, but Arthur resists, burrows deeper into Eames' chest. He makes a noise that sounds like _No_ or maybe like _Do it again._

Thankfully, Eames understands and turns his attention to Arthur's ear, the back of his neck, the notches in his spine. Arthur shivers and smiles and they both laugh soundlessly, without knowing how or why. They feel the laugher, rather than hearing it, and it shoots through both of them, intoxicating, loosening muscles like a drug.

Erasing doubt for a fleeting second, only to leave a gaping, screaming mouth of black hole in its wake.

Arthur chokes. Eames rubs his back.

Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur thinks he sees something darker closing in on them, something cold and shifting and uncatchable. _Save us_ he thinks, but there's no one there, he remembers, they're the last, they're the only ones, they're warm and powerful, warm and powerful, warm and powerful-

He tries to reassure himself, but he doesn't believe it.

The darkness spins shapes around them, crawling and creeping. Arthur tries to speak, but can't.  
Eames is telling him not to. Eames is telling him it'll be all right.

_Please,_ Arthur thinks. _Leave him and take me instead. _

Eames laughs against the crown of Arthur's head at this suggestion. And that's when it hits him. That's when the cogs mesh just so, when the wheel is sent turning, spinning, rolling down the hill, too fast to catch. Eames goes to turn Arthur's chin upwards again, and this time he doesn't resist, biting back the fear of what he'll find when he-

Arthur looks up and meets Eames' eyes. "You're already gone, aren't you?" Arthur murmurs, never having seen his eyes, _anyone's_ eyes be quite so alive, like a singular entity, like their own being, like they could survive as some part outside of Eames' himself. As though they have their own thoughts, needs, desires. Their own grief and desperation. They bore holes in Arthur, they threaten him with their severity.

And he knows what he has to do; he knows that the truth will only hurt more later. It has to be now, it has to be-

"Eames. You died three weeks ago."

And just like that, the world dissolves into maddening clarity, into something so crystal-sharp and jagged-clear that Arthur has to close his eyes against the glare, the brightness. With a swallow, he tastes the starkness, the clean-cut beauty of the moment before it slides away and shatters-

When Arthur wakes up, he's clutching his pillow so tightly that the cotton is pressed up against his mouth. Unwilling, he lets out a whimper, but there's no one there to hear it. Only him, and a dull blue blanket. The noise echoes inside his skull and he listens to it, again and again and again and-

and-

_Fin._

_

* * *

_

_*_original prompt:

_My brown toes tickled your safe white skin—even the hair  
on your legs looked combed. I was an unbuttoned blouse,  
you a starched collar, but how good we loved!_

__

Our bed was an ocean, a forest, as we reduced  
to root and rock, a glorious new thing without borders  
or ends. When you jumped instead of burned,

(I knew you'd take charge of your end, want that last breath  
of blue sky, ultraviolet rays be damned), finally, finally  
I huddled under our sheets, that awful Aaron Brown

_on the TV, and looked at my very tanned legs  
against the 100% white cotton. I stayed there for days,  
looking, waiting to fade for you, for me._

-Lori Williams, _Love Poem_

_Your reviews mean everything to me. _


End file.
